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She's Normal. She's an Artist

LSE Arts Talking Pictures lecture series

Ruth Maclennan will discuss two works, Capital and Valley of Castles (Hunting Eagles) which she filmed in Kazakhstan in 2007. Capital is set in Kazakhstan's Astana. A woman addresses the founder-ruler of a dream city that promises a glossy but oppressive future by erasing the past. Valley of Castles (Hunting Eagles) follows the artist's journey to the village of Nura in South-eastern Kazakhstan to film traditional Kazakh eagle hunters. After the journey, against a dramatic landscape of snow-capped mountains, the film moves into a different register as the hunter sets the golden eagle free over an empty canyon. This work explores the invention and performance of cultural identity, and the projection of expectations on to people, and on to the cinematic image itself.